Wonderful Wirral
(a personal view)
Wirral
is a peninsula which lies across the river Mersey opposite the City of Liverpool.
The borough is also made up of a number of villages which have now managed to
merge into each other. The only difference now is the shipping docks which separate
Birkenhead from Wallasey.
On the
doorstep of Wirral are all the things you wouldn't find in many places. At the
north we have the sea and sandy beaches and at the south we have the country
and Welsh mountains. On the east is the river Mersey and the west is the river
Dee. Most of Wirral is accessible by public transport and there are lots of
shopping centres around. Our controlling body is 'Wirral Metropolitan Borough
Council' and unlike some places, we have 2 town halls. One in Birkenhead
and the other in Wallasey.
There are
2 tunnels for traffic under the river connecting both sides of the river Mersey
to Liverpool. The oldest is the Queensway, opened in June 1934, which was dug
by hand and a lot of fatalities in the construction and the distance is about
2.5 miles. This tunnel links the Liverpool City centre to Birkenhead Town centre.
This (tube) as we call them, has 2 lanes for traffic going each way in a single
tube and has a speed limit of 30 MPH.
The other
tunnel links Wallasey to Liverpool and is outside the town and city centres.
This tube also has 2 lanes each way but is constructed into 2 tubes with a speed
limit of 40 MPH and is called the Kingsway. The toll for passing through these
tunnels is £1.20 per journey. This tunnel is also linked to the M53 motorway
and this means that there is, in effect, a motorway route from near the centre
of Liverpool through to London, which is about 250 miles in total.
We also
have a railway system which links the north, and west Wirral to Liverpool city
centre and goes through another tunnel under the river Mersey which is very
much older than the motor vehicle ones'. This tunnel was completed in 1886 and
the Electric railway links Wirral and Liverpool to
the City of Chester which is an old Roman city, complete with its surrounding
wall and cathedral.